Private John Ball and his platoon of Royal Welch Fusiliers travel from Southampton to France. Throughout the journey John experiences increasingly nightmarish visions. The platoon receives orders to join the Battle of the Somme, and find themselves taking part in the assault on Mametz Wood. At dawn, a chorus of dryads are heard from within the forest – do they bring death or rebirth?

Inspired by the work of a soldier poet

The opera In Parenthesis is based on the epic prose-poem of the same name by Welsh painter and poet David Jones – acclaimed by T.S. Eliot on its 1937 publication as ‘a work of genius’. Jones studied at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts before the outbreak of World War I interrupted his studies. He enlisted as a private with the London Welsh Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers and went on to survive the battles of Mametz Wood and Ypres. His horrific wartime experiences fed into In Parenthesis, though Jones did not intend it solely ‘as a “War Book”… I should prefer it to be about a good kind of peace’.

Librettists David Antrobus and Emma Jenkins originally intended to adapt In Parenthesis as a play – but as work progressed they found the poem’s intensity made it ‘perfect for the bold conceptual medium of opera’.

'It is so musical, so mellifluous, so evocative of a textured soundscape that we were convinced this would be a gift to any composer’, say the creative team. Antrobus and Jenkins carefully drew out from Jones’s dense and highly allusive writing a simpler thread that would work onstage, ultimately focussing on Jones’s alter ego in the poem, Private John Ball: ‘Ball is our Orpheus descending into the Wasteland of war and emerging miraculously alive after an ordeal that should have ended in certain death.’

A full-scale opera

Composer Iain Bell is best known for his vocal music, acclaimed for its colour and nuance across a variety of genres. In his previous operas, A Christmas Carol (with Simon Callow) and The Harlot’s Progress (with Diana Damrau), Bell collaborated closely with the librettists on the text. In Parenthesis was in some ways a reversal of that process, as Bell started with the finished libretto – but he still immersed himself in the text, working extensively with Antrobus and Jenkins: ‘only then was I ready to start writing’. The finished score weaves in many influences – Welsh folk song, bel canto vocal writing ‘subverted into a contemporary canvas’, an inventive palette of orchestral effects for Ball’s visions and extensive writing for WNO’s brilliant chorus – in reflection of Jones’s rich imagery and language.

Acts of remembrance

In Parenthesis is part of 14–18 NOW, a programme of cultural commissions to mark the centenary of World War I. The opera’s 2016 premiere coincides with the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, in which Jones fought and where he lost so many of his comrades, commemorated in In Parenthesis. 2016 also marks the 70th anniversary of Welsh National Opera’s first production – although the company was first conceived of in 1943, when the nation was in the grip of another war. David Pountney, Artistic Director of WNO and director of In Parenthesis, pays tribute to the committee of Welsh amateur musicians who sought ‘to forge a cultural initiative that explicitly embraced European culture as a whole’.

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The production was commissioned by the Nicholas John Trust, with 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions, supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England and by the Department for Culture Media and Sport.

On 1 July 1916, British and French forces commenced an offensive against the German Empire by the River Somme, a battle which would go down in history as one of the bloodiest conflicts of the First World War. As a member of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, poet David Jones experienced first-hand the horrors of the Battle of Somme and used this as inspiration for his poem In Parenthesis.

Widely considered the greatest English work of literature on war, In Parenthesis combines lyrical verse, prose, military slang and literary references, which include Shakespeare, Malory, Milton and even Lewis Carroll.

Central to the epic war poem tradition is the 'warrior’s boast' and in Part 4 of In Parenthesis the immortal soldier Dai Greatcoat delivers his. He claims to have been present at some of the most significant conflicts in Western history and myth, from Cain’s murder of Abel, to the Trojan War, to King Arthur’s Battle of Badon Hill, as well as legendary Welsh victories and defeats. Greatcoat is the archetypal warrior who is not just experiencing the current battle but also all those that have come before.

On the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Somme, the new opera In Parenthesis will be performed by the Welsh National Opera at the Royal Opera House as part of the World War I Centenary. Composed by Iain Bell and directed by David Pountney, this world premiere also celebrates the 70th birthday of the Welsh National Opera.

The opera captures the terror, humour and other-worldliness of Jones’ poem, maintaining the texture of his writing through use of ancient languages and traditional Welsh song. Greatcoat concludes his boast with – ‘You ought to ask, why? What is this? What’s the meaning of this?’ – questions that the opera also seeks to answer.

Commissioned by the Nicholas John Trust
With 14-18 NOW, WWI Centenary Art Commissions, supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and by the Department for Culture Media and Sport.

A year ago, the pupils of Helenswood Academy, an all-girls school in Sussex, had a very definite idea of what opera entailed: they assumed that they didn’t like the art form and it wasn’t for them. All that changed after their Head of Music, Liz Mason, attended the Royal Opera House’s Write an Opera course last summer and subsequently staged the school’s very own opera.

The Write an Opera course equips teachers with the skills, resources and inspiration to support students’ learning across the curriculum through the arts and creativity. It helps teachers to develop the skills that enable them to stage their own operatic productions with their pupils, who get involved in every aspect of creating the opera: writing music and lyrics, performing on stage and in the orchestra, conducting, designing the costumes, props, scenery and lighting, running the marketing campaign as well as the front of house and stage management side of things.

We spoke to Liz to find out how Write an Opera – which is benefitting from our current Season Appeal – has inspired her pupils:

Liz, could you tell us a bit about the opera and how it came about?

The opera, called Brave Enough to be Yourself was set in the time of World War I to commemorate the centenary year. The opera opened with a suffragette protest and ended with a tragic scene in a French hospital. There was a real buzz in the school as opening night approached – it was so exciting. We even made it onto BBC News!

The only theme we gave the girls was ‘World War I’ and then they developed the story around it. It was a whole school effort, across the year groups – the Modern Languages, Art, Drama and Design Technology departments were all involved and so had an interest in making a success of it. Everyone had a chance to take part.

What was the reaction of the pupils and parents?

There was some initial scepticism from pupils as they assumed they didn’t like opera. Once they got started though, they loved it. They were encouraged to find their own voices and not to sing as they thought opera should sound – there was a real emphasis on finding their own sound and expressing their feelings through it.

Due to the size of the ensemble (at over 200 performers), the cast had to be split in half for the two performances. After the first performance, the singers loved it so much that they wanted to come back and sing on the next night!

The parents were absolutely thrilled and blown away. Lots of them said they were very grateful to have something different to the usual talent show format. It’s been fantastic for the girls to learn that they don’t need a talent show judge to tell them they’re great; they just needed to take part for themselves.

The girls now want to tour with the opera to other schools, and we’re planning to link up with the History Department and will go to Ypres and perform there too. We’ve also been invited to perform Brave Enough to be Yourself again, this time at the De La Warr Pavilion, a local performing arts venue.

How has writing an opera affected the school?

Everyone is proud and excited about the achievement of creating something and performing it. I’ve seen so many pupils blossom; it’s been wonderful. We want to write another opera in 2015/16, but not until we’ve performed Brave Enough to be Yourself a few more times! Next time round we will enlist the pupils who have already been involved to be mentors for the newer pupils. It means that they can support their peers as well as their teachers.

We’ve now also got a small orchestra together, which is something I’ve been trying to develop for a long time. It has been a fantastic experience for all involved.

In 1914, as Europe slid inexorably towards war, the Royal Opera House's programme was reassuringly diverse: opera and ballet were staged alongside a range of other events including film shows, cabarets, lectures and dances.

A season of German opera in February and March, was notable for the first English performances of Wagner's Parsifal and Méhul's Joseph. On those Fridays when there was no opera performance the theatre opened at 11pm for lavish fancy dress balls.

The artistic focus on works from the continent continued from April until 28 July with a Royal Opera Season of French, Italian and German works. Even 100 years ago, Covent Garden was a major draw for the world's top operatic talent and Nellie Melba, Emmy Destinn, Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti all sang on stage here during this period. The Season opened with Puccini's La bohème,starring Melba as Mimi, and on 11 May a gala was held to mark the state visit of the King and Queen of Denmark, with the British Royal family also present. This performance was briefly and memorably interrupted by a suffragette who stood up and attempted to address King George V while a second began to distribute leaflets. Both were swiftly escorted from the building. Verdi's Aida was performed on the last night of the Season, the day on which the Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded Serbia, signalling the start of World War I.

When Britain entered the war, the Royal Opera House was requisitioned by the Ministry of Works, whose responsibilities included the conversion of buildings for wartime purposes. For much of the war, the theatre remained closed and was used as a furniture depository, though a small number of benefit performances took place in 1914, 1915 and 1916.

The Royal Opera House reopened as a full-time theatre in 1919 with a Grand Opera season in conjunction with Sir Thomas Beecham. The first performance saw Nellie Melba return as Mimi in Puccini’s La bohème, echoing the last Grand Opera Season before the War, almost exactly five years before.

Find out more about the ROH in wartime at our current exhibition in the Box Office Link, opposite the ROH Shop.

A Very Special OccasionFrederick Ashton created Rhapsody to celebrate the 80th birthday of the Queen Mother in 1980. Ashton frequently choreographed works for special occasions, and other examples include Homage to The Queen and Birthday Offering. Almost all of these have survived beyond their gala-specific origins to become staples of The Royal Ballet's repertory.

Variations on a ThemeAshton selected Rachmaninoff’sRhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, his exuberant final masterpiece for piano and orchestra. He was following in the footsteps of choreographers Mikhail Fokine and Leonid Lavrovsky – but unlike Fokine and Lavrovsky's narrative works, Ashton used the alternately passionate and lyrical variations of Rachmaninoff’s music as the basis for a celebration of pure virtuoso dance. Rhapsody is particularly notable for its dazzling solo male role, created for Mikhail Baryshnikov as the culmination of his series of guest appearances with The Royal Ballet.

The Beauty of NumbersDiscussions of J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue oftenexplore the intricacies of its structure, and some even suggest that the work was influenced by the Pythagorean theory of numbers – in particular the pyramidal shape of the tetractys. These ideas inspired Wayne McGregor and Tauba Auerbach, whose choreography and designs for Tetractys –The Art of Fugue reflect the complex geometry of Bach’s music. However, while it is fascinating to explore these links, McGregor is keen that the audience ‘see the oneness’ of his new ballet. In Tetractys, the combination of music, dance and design transcends the codes that fused them together; creating a new, abstract work of art.

An Intriguing Masterpiece‘What we know about J.S. Bach’s masterly Art of Fugue is just about outweighed by what we do not know’, says Michael Berkeley, who arranged and orchestrated the work for Tetractys. Comprising 19 fugues and canons all in the key of D minor, and with virtually no directions as to the order or manner in which they should be played, this masterpiece is just as baffling as it is astonishing. Its mystique has, over the centuries, resulted in many varied interpretations – Berkeley’s arrangement, which uses seven sections of the work, is one of several which have taken Bach’s four-line stave and translated it across the instruments of the orchestra.

Remembering the Great WarKenneth MacMillan’s Gloria, choreographed in 1980, laments the generation lost in World War I. Inspired by Vera Brittain’s autobiography Testament of Youth, the ballet’s powerful depiction of the brutality of conflict, as well as its moments of beauty and optimism, resonate as strongly in 2014 – the year which marks the centenary of the start of the Great War – as when the ballet was first performed.

Sensual SpiritualityMichael Somes, then Principal Répétiteur of The Royal Ballet, introduced MacMillan to Poulenc’s Gloria in G major. Poulenc’s setting of a section of the Roman Catholic mass has a profound spirituality while being very far from solemn. Joyous, daring and sometimes downright cheeky, this animated and earthy expression of faith provides a moving counterpoint to MacMillan's sobering exploration of the consequences of war.

The Rhapsody/Tetractys – The Art of Fugue/Gloria mixed programme runs 7–15 February 2014. A small number of tickets are still available. 67 day tickets will be available on the morning of each performance from the Box Office in Covent Garden at 10am.

Kenneth MacMillan's Gloria is a profoundly moving response to World War I. The opening image instantly evokes familiar images of soldiers at Passchendaele or the Somme – men, silhouetted, the distinctive profile of their Brodie helmets clearly visible. But the choreography itself speaks powerfully of the consequences of war and the anguish of loss.

MacMillan's wife Deborah has spoken of how throughout MacMillan's career he had sought to create a ballet in response to war. It wasn't until quite late in his life, in 1979, that MacMillan encountered the spur that would lead to Gloria. A BBC TV dramatization of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth inspired MacMillan with its elegiac tribute to the lost generation, told through Brittain's own experiences of working as a nurse and of losing both her brother and her fiancé to the conflict. Brittain's story is clearly represented in MacMillan's choreography, through limpid pas de deux and an excoriating, intense pas de trois, where the central woman holds the two men close to her.

But there's also a more directly personal element to Gloria. MacMillan's father William fought in World War I and died of pneumonia in 1946 when Kenneth was 16. William had not supported Kenneth's desire to dance – Kenneth had had to forge a letter from his father in order to audition for Ninette de Valois – and never saw him perform. William's death came at the same time as Kenneth received his first professional contract, and led to a personal crisis for Kenneth. He later wrote that on his father's death 'I was overcome by loneliness… I was unable to give my father the warmth he craved. It was an emotional paralysis that masked my real feelings for years to come.'

William never spoke to his family of his wartime experiences. He had enlisted in May 1915, at the age of 24, as a gunner with the Highland Fifth Royal Garrison Artillery. He was caught in a mustard gas-attack at the Battle of the Somme, which left him with lifelong pulmonary problems and sores on his face and neck. William nursed an intense contempt for the Army authorities, refusing further treatment or a disability pension after his discharge in 1919. He often spoke of moving his family to the Soviet Union. Kenneth later remembered his father forbidding him or his brother from joining the Scouts – his only explanation that he didn't want his sons wearing uniforms.

Many have suggested that Brittain's study of the Great War and its after-effects enabled MacMillan to begin to understand the horrors that his father had experienced, and to begin to unfold the guilt he had associated with his relationship with his father. There's anger in Gloria – the moment in the pas de trois where the three soloists point at the audience, a gesture that recalls the Lord Kitchener enlistment posters while also carrying a clear edge of accusation. There's pessimism too, in the moment where the corps de ballet gather in circular movements, a representation of the unending cycle of peace and war. But MacMillan's choreography also expresses tenderness, yearning and love in movements of intimate beauty. The sadness and horror expressed in Gloria is matched by a profound sense of humanity.

Gloria is a poignant tribute both to the fallen and to those left behind. MacMillan was able to invest his unique choreographic language with a deeply felt emotion. The result is one of his masterpieces, and a true act of remembrance.

Come to Covent Garden this weekend and you’ll be met by the sight of a brightly lit Christmas tree, an enormous reindeer with a glowing nose and hundreds of red baubles hanging inside the Apple Market.

But if you’d like to see a different side of the area – and have a break from shopping – you might be interested in this Ballets Russes walking tour. It has been developed by Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance at the V&A, and reveals the company’s close relationship with Covent Garden, uncovering some fascinating stories along the way.

Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes made their British debut at the Royal Opera House in 1911. During the next two decades, the company performed at many of the theatres in the surrounding area (then, as now, the theatrical heartland of London), captivating audiences with their groundbreaking and visually spectacular productions. They drew on the skills of the many craftspeople who worked nearby, from wig-makers and tailors to cobblers and fabric-makers, to bring their shows to the stage, and stayed in some of the world-famous hotels nearby, such as the Savoy and the Waldorf.

A century later, Covent Garden looks very different. But the changes that have been made are largely superficial. While the shop fronts may be different, the facades of buildings often remain the same. For instance, the residence of the celebrated wig-maker Willy Clarkson, who supplied the Ballets Russes with wigs, props and make up, is now the Chinese restaurant Wong Kei. Yet there are tantalizing glimpses of its former inhabitant: a clock with the words ‘Costumier’ and ‘Perruquier’ adorns the front, while a sign claiming ‘Sarah Bernhardt laid the foundation stone of this building 1904’ hints at the building’s theatrical heritage.

The walking tour reveals some wonderful stories. For instance, did you know that it was when rehearsing The Rite of Spring in Chandos House on nearby Maiden Lane that choreographer Leonid Massine and dancer Vera Savina (née Clarke) fell in love? They later married, leading to Savina’s dismissal from the company. And when the Ballets Russes performed at the Shaftesbury Theatre, some of the company were forced to get changed in Holborn Baths (now the Oasis Sports Centre), due to lack of space? They had to cross the busy road in their elaborate costumes to reach the theatre.

The tour also provides an insight into some of the larger historical events in which the company were caught up. During World War I, the Drill Hall on Chenies Street in which the Ballets Russes usually rehearsed was occupied by the army, prompting the company’s move to the Shaftesbury Hotel’s club room on nearby Monmouth Street. The Ballets Russes were in London again when peace was declared on 11 November 1918. After their performance that evening at the Coliseum, the company – including Diaghilev and Massine – were swept up in the jubilant mood and joined the celebrating crowds in Trafalgar Square.

The Ballets Russes (in their original incarnation) performed for the last time in London in 1929, again at the Royal Opera House. However, their innovative style of dance transformed the ballet world and their legacy lives on in dance companies round the world. Not least in The Royal Ballet. Tonight The Firebird opens, 100 years after the Ballet Russes first brought this iconic work to Covent Garden. The mythical Firebird will once more dart onto the stage in a flash of glittering red and gold – following in the footsteps of the Ballets Russes.